by Louise Allen
The servant who had lit his way here and unlocked the outer doors had gone. The house was deadly quiet, there were no lights in the windows, not even down at ground level. No help there from a competent housekeeper, a woman to hand his burden over to.
‘They’ll both be abed, I imagine,’ Miss Morton had said as she poured more tea for him whilst he made a hasty supper. ‘And frankly, Cook is very elderly and the lad is simple-minded. But Peter will guide you up. Then climb one of the flights of steps in the thickness of the wall and you’ll come out at the top. Go over either of the little bridges to the house and there’s a bed made up in one of the chambers, just cast around until you find it. No, no, it is no trouble at all, Lord Greystoke – I imagine you’ll be glad to be on dry land for a change.’ She beamed at him. ‘I would give you a room here if we were not redecorating the guest suites. Dear Emily would want me to find you a comfortable bed.’
Of course, she was a friend of Emily’s: he recalled his wife regretting that Janey Morton could not come to the wedding. And indeed, Miss Morton had seemed delighted to accommodate him.
At this moment he felt considerably less than grateful for her hospitality. She might have warned him there was another guest. Damn it, he could have walked into this woman’s bedchamber – and then there would have been hell to pay!
Blake stooped to juggle the latch open with his elbow. It brought his burden unsettlingly close to his face and he caught a hint of her scent. Spicy, warm, unique. Very familiar. He should know it, he had commissioned its creation from one of the best perfumiers in Bond Street as a wedding gift. Emily? Here? He almost dropped her.
The outer door swung open as he shoved it with his shoulder. In the passage ahead he saw another standing ajar. ‘Emily!’ She stirred and muttered then moved in his arms and went limp again. The stab of fear surprised him. He was used to dealing with wounds, and the rational part of his brain told him that she was not hurt, that she had merely fainted with shock. It was unlikely that a healthy young woman would come to any lasting harm from that, and yet his gut tightened. It took a lot to make Blake Heyward worry, far more to make him fearful, and he did not understand what he was feeling now.
When he laid Emily on the bed she was still in a deep swoon. Blake struck a flame and lit the candle. There was no mistaking the profile on the pillow: this was definitely his wife, he was not hallucinating. He put the back of his hand against her cheek and stroked the softness of her skin. ‘Emily.’
No wonder Janey Morton had been so smug about sending him up here – this was probably the only made-up bed on this floor and she knew he would find it. She should have warned him, he thought with sudden protective anger. He must have terrified Emily.
But why was his wife here on the Isles of Scilly, flitting about the castle battlements in her nightgown? He had left her in Hampshire on their wedding day, blinking back the tears as she conjured up a brave smile that had caught him in the gut with guilt.
She was cold, he realised. Concerned now that she did not stir, he touched her scalp with gentle fingers. There was no swelling, no sinister shifting of bone under the pressure, no hint that she had struck her head. His hands, Blake realised with a jolt, were shaking. This was not some comrade he was checking over for wounds, this was his wife.
If he did not attempt to rouse her she would come out of her swoon soon and drift naturally into sleep without fully regaining consciousness. That would be best, he told himself, forcing back the selfish need to wake her, to see those clear blue eyes widen in surprise and, he hoped, desire.
But unconscious or not, he was going to hold her in his arms, sleep with her in this bed tonight. He moved with the soft-footed care of a man trained to stalk the enemy as he unfastened his cloak, unbuckled his sword, sat down on the end of the bed to tug off his boots, then dropped the remainder of his uniform on the chair. He eased into the bed beside her and pulled the covers over the two of them, turned onto his side and settled the slim, enticing body against him.
Lord, but he wanted her. During the weeks of their courtship it had been hard to hold back from kissing her with the full force of the passion she aroused in him, but he had not wanted to frighten her. There was time to get to know each other once they were married, for her to learn to trust him, for him to learn how to seduce his own wife into all the pleasures of the bedchamber.
Theirs might not have been a love match, and Emily had been admirably frank about acknowledging the basis for their alliance, but that did not rule out fondness and desire.
The vague ache in his groin became stronger, joined with the throb in his shoulder, as if his body was trying to keep him awake. But years in the army had left him able to sleep in the saddle, up a tree or on his feet, if he had to, and to wake at the snap of a twig. As he felt himself drift he buried his face in the spill of soft hair on the pillow and hoped his wife had missed him.
Blake was curled protectively around her. Emily smiled sleepily and arched her back, pressing her buttocks into the very prominent indication that her husband knew she was there. What a wonderful dream. She did not want to wake, not when her imagination was conjuring up such delicious, wicked things.
But she was awake, there was no point in pretending. She opened her eyes and found she was staring at stone walls, an ancient oak chest. This was not her room. She was not in Hampshire or even in the Governor’s house. The recollection that she was in the Star Castle came a fraction of a second before the realisation that the naked man under the covers with her was real and he had no right to be there.
With a gasp she propelled herself out of bed and landed on the hard floor with a painful jolt. The room swam for a moment until she got her eyes to focus. ‘I’ll scream. I’m warning you, you… ‘ Her voice trailed away as he sat up in bed. ‘Blake? It is you?’ She was going mad. ‘I dreamed, last night…’ Then she saw that he was naked to the waist except for a dressing on his shoulder. ‘You are hurt.’ She took a grip on the bed post and hauled herself to her feet. He is hurt but he is alive. Thank God.
‘You dreamt you saw a ghost on the battlements?’ he asked without preamble. He had gone very still; she sensed he did not want to alarm her
So it had not been a dream? It was coming back now in all its horror. ‘Your ghost. I saw its face. Your face. So white. I thought you were dead and I was seeing your spirit. And then – did I faint?’
He nodded. ‘You fainted and I caught you. I put you to bed. It is wonderful to see you, but what the devil are you doing here, Emily?’ Blake threw back the covers and swung his feet off the bed. He was stark naked.
She gave a little gasp and shut her eyes. She had never seen a naked man before, never even seen Blake’s bare chest, although, greatly daring, she had slipped her hand between his shirt and waistband as they had grappled, laughing, in the chaise on the way to Hampshire.
‘Blake!’
‘I am sorry.’ He sounded more amused than repentant. ‘I have covered myself up. Come back to bed.’
Emily opened her eyes warily but stayed where she was. ‘This cannot be real. I must be dreaming. You vanish for two months on our wedding day, then you reappear in my bed with no warning, here of all places! What is wrong with your shoulder?’
‘French bullet. No,’ he held up a hand as she gasped. ‘In and out, a flesh wound. It is virtually healed, although I must admit it gave a pang when I caught a fainting ghost and found her solid flesh and blood. For a second I thought you were a phantom too, which was… stimulating.
‘The naval vessel I was returning on stopped off here to leave dispatches: most of them coming from the Bay of Biscay will stop over here in the Pool. It is just a coincidence that your great friend happened to encounter me while I was talking to her brother, although why I should find you in this place, I cannot imagine. Miss Morton obviously thought it a fine joke to send me up here for the night without warning me about your presence.’
‘Janey is a romantic,’ Emily said. Her pulse had stopped jumping a
nd she had her breathing under control now. She was not going to make a fool of herself by falling into Blake’s arms and covering him with kisses, which she very much wanted to do. It would betray too much of how she felt for him when he was making no such declarations.
He looked tanned and lean. Harder somehow, although the man she had married had been fit and confident. This, she supposed, was the extra edge that came with recent fighting.
She felt shy and awkward. Would he still want her? Must they start all over again to get to know each other? ‘I thought I deserved a holiday so I accepted Janey’s invitation to visit her. She’s been asking me for ages, she says she gets lonely here,’ she added, talking almost at random.
‘You left Greystoke?’ Blake asked. Emily wished he would put some clothes on. The sight of his naked chest, strapped with muscles, dusted with dark hair, made her want to lay her cheek on it, to wrap her arms around him and hold tight in thankfulness that he was back safe, but she did not know if she should make the first move. Or how to make it.
‘Do you mind? I was… lonely. And, I confess, rather weary. I have spent almost eight weeks finding staff, cleaning and ordering repairs, starting to turn that wreck of a house into something fit for a gentleman’s residence and I needed a rest. I am not used to that kind of thing,’ she added, meaning it as a joke. ‘I have been spoiled, perhaps.’
Blake frowned. ‘I had not intended you to do all that. No wonder you felt faint, you must be worn out.’
‘I haven’t been scrubbing on hands and knees myself,’ she said. ’But making so many decisions was worrying. The estate needs its master. But in your absence Mr Welling appears to be a most adequate steward and I left him restocking the flocks and making enquiries about beef cattle. The Home Farm repairs have begun. We now have an experienced housekeeper. I have spent,’ she added, risking teasing, ‘A great deal of your money.’
‘Our money,’ Blake corrected. He had been sensitive to the thought that he was a fortune hunter, but Emily had not minded that he had been seeking a wife with a large dowry, not when she found him so attractive, admired him so much.
She had taken the bull by the horns when he proposed and told him that he need not tread cautiously around the reason for the match. ‘I have money, you have a title and an estate,’ she had stated. ‘My mother was a lady who eloped with a mill owner who became vastly wealthy: that is my good fortune. Your ancestors came over with the Conqueror and acquired lands and a title. That is your wealth. It seems sensible to me that we combine them. You will find that I am very sensible,’ she added, by way of a warning.
‘Don’t you want romance?’ he had asked, frowning a little.
‘That would be nice,’ she replied demurely and Blake had laughed and kissed her until her toes curled in her satin slippers and her chaperone had become quite flustered. He obviously thought romance meant kisses and flirting, not love. But the kisses had been delicious.
He could keep his face very much under control, although she had learned to read him a little. Now his brows, darker than his honey-blond hair, drew together just a little and his green eyes darkened as they did when his emotions were stirred. She liked his hair like that - long, wild. Romantic.
Emily got to her feet and walked to the window. It would be good if her breathing would settle down and her pulse would stop jittering and if she could either find the courage to dive into bed with Blake – or to ask him, in a dignified manner, what his plans were. Or whether he had missed her.
There was a worn bell pull dangling by the empty hearth but, given that the cook was hard of hearing, there did not seem to be much point in ringing it. Emily scooped up her clothing and stepped behind the leather screen in one corner of the room. ‘I will wash and dress and then go and order hot water for you and see whether we take breakfast here or at the Governor’s house.’ It would mean washing in cold water herself, but that might serve to sharpen her brain.
‘Very wifely.’ The amusement was just under the surface, she could hear it, knew how his eyes would be dancing with laughter as he teased her.
Emily rubbed her toothbrush into the powder with unnecessary force. ‘That is my aim, my lord.’
There was a snort of laughter. ‘My lord. Now that, I am finding, is taking getting used to. I have been Sir or Major for so long.’
She rinsed her mouth, washed hastily and reached for her petticoats. ‘I am certain you will become accustomed, as you will to being married. Eventually we both will,’ she added rather desperately. By her wedding day she’d had weeks to become prepared for marriage. After weeks of separation she never dreamt she would simply wake up and find herself in bed with her new husband.
Blake chuckled, close to the screen. She had forgotten his ability to pad soundlessly about, surprising her when she least expected him. ‘I am already used to that, never fear. I missed you, Emily.’
And I missed you too, my love. ‘You did?’ She tried not to sound too eager, to embarrass both of them. Her fingers hesitated at the ties of her gown. He was very near. Should she just step out, into his arms? Was that proper wifely behaviour, or should she wait for him to make the first move? Her head was spinning and she must do this right.
‘Eight weeks is a long time for a man to be without his wife. Especially when he is snatched away on his wedding night.’ He sounded more distant, as though he had strolled off to explore the room.
‘It is precisely the same length of time as it is for a woman,’ she observed, as she secured the neck of her gown. Her stays, fortunately, fastened at the front.
By the sound of it he had not sought female company elsewhere. Thank goodness. She had no idea if she would have been surprised if he had: she knew so little of men or what to expect. All she knew was that it would have hurt.
Emily took a deep breath and came out from behind the screen with the empty ewer in her hands. Her husband, stark naked, except for the strapping on his shoulder and a sheet hitched around his waist, was studying the prospect from the window. Against the light she could not see more than a silhouette but it presented her with an excellent, and unsettling, view of broad shoulders, narrow waist and long legs. ‘You have lost weight,’ she said. Somehow she kept her voice steady. She moved closer and saw the honed muscles were sharply defined beneath skin that had lost what little fat had underlain it.
Blake turned. ‘It is nothing serious. We were behind enemy lines without much to eat, that is all.’
‘What?’ It was not until he lunged forward and caught the jug that she realised that it had dropped from her nerveless hands. ‘Behind enemy lines? Is that not very dangerous? Blake, put that stupid jug down, let me look at you!’ All the shyness vanished as she threw herself at him, her hands running over his torso, reassuring herself that he really was all right.
‘Hush.’ Blake put the ewer on the floor and gathered Emily firmly into his arms. ‘You are sounding like an agitated hen with one chick. Behind the lines their guns are all pointing the other way. Much safer.’
She wriggled so that she could get her hands free and buried them in his hair on either side of his face, the stubble on his cheeks prickling her palms as she searched his face with anxious eyes. ‘Do not jest! I do not believe that for one moment.’ Oh, she could hit him if she was not so thankful he was safe.
Blake shrugged. ‘Don’t you dare cry.’
Emily sniffed. ‘Why not?’
‘Because I want to make love to you and I don’t want you all salty.’
Oh. Oh, at last. Her hands slid round to his shoulders, holding lightly as her fingertips brushed the bandage. Blake bent his head and kissed her, his lips moulding over hers, not with the restrained pressure that he had used while they were courting, or even the laughing passion they had shared in the chaise on their wedding day, but with the arrogant possessiveness of a returning warrior. Blake’s kiss did not ask permission, it told her quite firmly that she belonged to him and that he was set on making up for their enforced separation without dela
y.
When he freed his mouth to catch the lobe of her ear between his teeth she gasped. ‘Now?’
‘Now,’ he growled, his hands closing around her waist as he lifted her onto the bed. ‘Here and now is where this marriage begins.’
Chapter Three
Emily lay amidst the rumpled bedding and said, ‘I’ve got all my clothes on,’ then blushed at the gaucheness of it.
‘I know. So now I have all the fun of taking them off again.’ Blake ran his tongue over his lips in apparent anticipation.
‘That is… fun?’ It seemed improbable, but his face as he ran his hands up her legs to reach her garters was rapt.
‘More fun when we can undress each other. We could spend hours just doing that, but this morning I do not think I can be quite that slow.’ His fingers tickled while he untied the ribbons and they danced trails of sensation down her calves as he rolled off the stockings. ‘Roll over so I can unfasten your gown.’
Obedient, Emily did as he asked and found herself, moments later, flat on her back again with her stays off too and only her shift between herself and her husband’s gaze.
‘Do you feel embarrassed’ he asked. She shook her head, dubious about just what she did feel. ‘Frightened?’
No. She was certain of that. Emily shook her head again.
‘Shy?’
‘Oh, yes, that is it exactly.’
‘Would it help if I was naked first?’ His hands went to the knot in the sheet around his waist.
‘No!’ It came out as a startled squeak. Emily took a deep breath. ‘It isn’t that I do not want you to make love to me. I do. Very much. I’ve imagined…’ She broke off blushing at the thought of her imaginings. ‘Only… it is all rather a shock.’
